24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Phoenix
She has been quiet ever since we left the café. Which, knowing Willow, usually means her brain is chewing on something. Her hands are folded in her lap and her face is turned toward the window.
I know every version of her silence. This one has my name all over it and what I said back there.
I should say something. Tell her it was a joke. Throw a smirk on it and let us both pretend I didn’t just crack open something I have spent years keeping nailed shut.
That’s what I usually do, but I’m sick of the bullshit version of us and of hiding behind jokes when all I want is to tell her the truth.
Fuck, why is this so hard?
I almost lost her. And I still cannot bring myself to say that she is the only thing in my life I don’t know how to survive without.
That I fucking love her.
The words are there, lodged somewhere behind my ribs. But every time I try to drag them up, they catch on all the shit I have done to her.
Fuck, I should have kept my mouth shut in the café. That is usually safest for everyone involved. But my mouth has been getting me laid, paid, and occasionally punched for years, so expecting it to develop wisdom now feels fucking optimistic.
Still, I saw the way she looked at me after what I said. Saw the question rise in her eyes before I walked away, sparing myself the need to explain that my entire personality has become inconvenient since she nearly died.
I need to tell her I want her. Not the way men say it when they mean naked, wet, and waiting.
I want her. All of her.
The one person who kept seeing me through all the noise, even when I gave her every reason to stop looking.
That was the whole point of the café. I didn’t take that turn because I suddenly developed an interest in antique shops and small-town coffee. I went there because I intended to tell her how I feel.
I was going to tell her I have changed. Not suddenly house-trained and ready to sit politely at someone’s feet. Just changed enough to realize I don’t want what we had three months ago.
I want more. More than one night in a storage room, followed by me running scared and leaving her to bleed from it alone.
I had an opening when I mentioned leaving the after-parties early. She asked about it. All I had to do was tell her the fucking truth. That the women stopped looking tempting the second I saw her lying in that hospital bed.
That every greenroom, every hotel suite, every room full of people wanting a piece of me has felt cheap ever since. That once you nearly lose the only person who ever mattered, all the easy shit starts to be exactly as empty as it always was.
But I didn’t have the balls. I still don’t. Because saying I want her is the easy part. Admitting I love her means handing her the one thing in me that has never belonged to anyone else and trusting that I haven’t already broken it beyond repair.
Sitting across from her as she wrapped those lips around a coffee cup was not exactly helping my concentration.
I looked at her mouth too many times. Every time, my head went straight back to that storage room. My hand around her throat. Her body taking every hard inch of me. Her mouth open against my ear while I fucked her hard enough to forget there was a world outside that door.
The memory still makes my cock remember before the rest of me has the sense to shut it down.
Willow’s apartment building comes into view and my grip tightens on the steering wheel.
I pull up out front and shut off the engine.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
She looks at the building, then at me. “Home sweet home.”
“Wills.” Her name comes out rough, which is impressive, considering it’s one fucking syllable.
She turns toward me.
I have the words. They are right there, jammed behind my teeth.
“It’s just…” I run a hand over my jaw. “Back there, when I said that thing about the bullshit.”
Christ. I can make a stadium full of people scream with three chords and a smirk. Put Willow beside me in a parked car and suddenly language becomes a fucking hostage situation.
Her eyes stay locked on mine as I try again.
“I just…” I scrub a hand over my face and open my mouth to say the rest.
“Let’s go inside,” she says, opening the door before I can get the words out.
And just like that, the moment is gone.
Story of my fucking life.
I pull the key free, open my door, and grab her suitcase, my bag, and my guitar from the back seat.
I slip my guitar strap over my head so it rests against my back. Then I take both bags.
She glances at me as I walk around the car.
“I can carry my own suitcase.”
“I’ve got it, Wills,” I say, not putting it down.
We step into the building and the elevator doors close us in a box lined with mirrors.
Willow stands close enough that I catch the faint scent of her shampoo. Familiar enough to fuck with my head.
I stare at her reflection.
Her eyes hold mine in the glass and every filthy thought I have been trying to keep on a leash starts chewing through the rope. Her hair falls around her face in a way that makes me want to fist my hand in it and find out if she still makes that sound when I pull.
Beautiful doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Willow is the kind of beauty that gets under my skin and stays. Her curves I remember too well and have no business imagining under my hands again. She looks like every version of home I have spent years pretending I didn’t need.
The elevator climbs and the silence between us grows heavier with every floor. Full of everything I want to say and everything I still don’t have the balls to drag up from my throat.
The elevator jolts to a stop.
Willow looks away first.
The doors slide open. We step out together and every unsaid thing trailing close behind.
She unlocks the apartment door and, the second it opens, noise punches through the hallway.
“Welcome home!”
Willow freezes in the doorway.
I peer over her head and find the three idiots standing in her living room as if they have broken in and are throwing a welcome-home party.
Food covers the coffee table. Drinks line the counter. Jett holds a huge, bright bouquet of flowers that looks as though he mugged a florist on his way over. Cruz stands beside him, wearing the expression of a man who absolutely helped but plans to deny it under oath.
A banner hangs crookedly across the wall.
WELCOME HOME, SONGBIRD.
Subtlety has never lasted long around this band.
Jax steps forward first because patience has never lasted long in him. “Don’t stand there looking weird. Come give me a fucking hug, Wills.”
She barely makes it inside when he pulls her against his chest.
Willow laughs and the sound changes the whole fucking room.
“You scared the shit out of us,” he mutters into her hair.
“I know,” she says, muffled against him.
At least, I think that’s what she says. Jax has her so tight in his arms that she could be confessing to murder and none of us would hear it properly.
“Don’t do it again.”
“Jax.”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t breathe.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry.”
He lets her go so fast he almost drops her.
Jett steps forward next and holds out the bouquet. “These are for you.”
Willow takes them. “They’re beautiful.”
He hugs her. Carefully.
That is the difference between the twins. Jax loves at full volume, with all rough edges and bruising grip. Jett, on the other hand, does it quietly, as if caring for someone were something you protect rather than perform.
“Glad you’re home,” he says.
Her eyes close. “Me too.”
He lets her go.
Cruz waits his turn. “Come here, Songbird.”
Willow sets the huge bouquet on the table and goes to him. Cruz folds her into his arms, one hand settling between her shoulder blades as he leans in to whisper in her ear.
None of us hear what he says except for Willow.
Cruz has always loved her in that protective, older-brother way that makes him notice when she is too quiet, tired, or when some asshole has pushed too far.
And usually, that asshole is me.
That is why he has spent years crawling up my ass every time I hurt her.
Willow pulls back, tears shining in her eyes, and looks up at him. Then she nods.
Cruz smiles down at her, soft in a way he rarely lets anyone see.
When he lifts his head, his eyes meet mine over Willow’s shoulder. His charm drops for half a second. Long enough for me to understand exactly what he is saying. Do not fuck this up again.
As Willow moves further into the apartment with the flowers in her arms and the guys trailing after her, I take her suitcase down the hall without making a thing of it.
I set it beside the wardrobe in her bedroom and stand for a second longer than I need to before heading back out and tucking my bag and guitar into a corner where none of these idiots can kick them.
Willow sits on the couch between Jax and Jett. Cruz stands nearby, arms folded, watching her.
They are all trying not to fuss, which means they are fussing like absolute amateurs.
Jax offers her chips. Then he offers a packet of crackers, which he immediately starts insulting.
“These are shit,” he tells her. “But you might like them. Some people do.”
Willow looks at the packet. “That’s a glowing endorsement.”
“I wanted the good ones, but asshat said these were better.”
Jett doesn’t even glance at him. “They’re whole grain.”
“Exactly. That’s the sign they taste like shit, but you might…”
She laughs, then puts her hand on Jax’s arm. The moment Willow touches him, he stops talking.
“Thank you, Jax,” she says.
I head to the kitchen to grab a drink. The guys already have beers. Willow has a glass of orange juice in front of her.
I open the fridge and find enough alcohol inside to suggest they are not planning to leave before dark.
For a second, I wonder if this is too much—too many voices, too much noise, and too many people watching her breathe, pretending they are not.
Then I remember why she asked me to stay instead of her parents. She wanted normal. This little fucked-up circus is the closest we have to it.